Inside the 'happiest workplace in the UK'

When telephone company Moneypenny opened their new £15m headquarters it was described as the "happiest workplace in the UK". Fuelled by recent significant investment BusinessCloud editor Chris Maguire paid their impressive HQ a visit.

Chris Maguire8:00am 30th Nov 2018

Moneypenny's £15m headquarters in Wrexham

It's easy to see why Moneypenny's £15 million HQ has been compared to Google and Apple offices.

Maybe it's the tree house meeting room, pub, sun terrace, subsidised restaurant offering free breakfast and fruit or the seven acres of landscaped gardens that surround the building, this is not what I expected when I headed to their new home in Wrexham.

More about the 91,000 sq ft offices later but what's the history of Moneypenny?

It was founded by brother and sister Ed Reeves and Rachel Clacher (pictured below) after Ed missed a really important call when he was off windsurfing and lost a huge order in the process.

Recognising a gap in the market the pair set up Moneypenny in 2000, which is now the world's leading outsourced switchboard company with new US offices.

The company works with businesses of all shapes and sizes, from sole traders right up to multinational corporations. In the UK, Moneypenny has more than 500 staff, and has offices in Charleston, USA. The company currently handles over 15 million customer communications a year for 13,000 businesses.

The appeal is simple. Companies never need to miss another call or listen to a voicemail again. Live chats are soaring in popularity while everything is stored in the cloud.

Moneypenny's business model is built on the premise that happy employees equals happy clients. As you walk into the entrance all the staff's names appear on huge wooden panels on the wall.

Staff turnover is tiny - the first employee still works for the company - and last year they received over 3,000 applications for jobs that weren't even advertised.

Hardly surprising then that when it came to creating a new head office the staff were asked exactly what that wanted before a single brick was laid.

"We didn't want to create a great workplace based on someone else's vision of brilliant; we wanted it to be somewhere that our staff love," explained Reeves.

As a result of the feedback an idyllic semi-rural setting was in and air con and strip lighting were definitely out. Huge floor-to-ceiling windows flood the building with natural sunlight.

There's no hot-desking and all staff are given an allowance to buy a lamp for their desk to personalise it. It sounds ridiculous but even the loos are themed and posh.

Eating at your desk is discouraged as staff are urged to socialise, which extends into trips, private cinema screenings and festivals.

Moneypenny's impressive pub hosts quarterly celebrations of exceptional achievements for staff and winners get their own personalised tankard that hangs behind the bar.

There's a huge emphasis on internal communications, evidenced by the company's use of the Workplace by Facebook platform, which boasts 99 per cent staff engagement.

Joanna Swash is the managing director of Moneypenny, which she describes as a "tech-enabled outsourced communications company".

I interviewed her in the shadow of the imposing tree house meeting room and she said the key to the company's success was keeping everything simple and convenient.

"It's about walking in your customers' shoes and thinking 'what do they need now?' and also what are they going to need over the coming years in terms of technology to help them work smarter?" she told me.